Smelling good

I’m going to write up a post about our NYC trip soon, I promise. Right now I’m at home with the worst head cold of 2010 (it had better be, seeing as there’s only a few months left), and I don’t feel like writing too much. I did want to talk a little bit about perfume, though.

I’ve always loved good smelling things. Who doesn’t? Good smells can make you feel so much better on a crummy day. Spritzing on some perfume can bring back some good memories or shoot your self esteem a bit over that annoying bump of the morning. I used to love wearing perfume, but then I stopped. I don’t know when or even why I stopped, I just did. Part of it was probably to do with working in the library and not wanting to wear scents that would bother patrons.

Maybe another part was feeling like I was in a rut as far as scents were concerned. All of my perfumes fell into one of two categories: either they were too strong and/or sweet, or I had been wearing the scent for years and it just didn’t smell like me anymore. So imagine my surprise when I fell in love with not one but FOUR perfumes on this trip to NYC. They were all in the Opening Ceremony store – I spent over an hour smelling, sniffing, moving my wrists around in front of me like some voodoo queen, and thrusting my neck under Sky’s nose repeatedly. In the end, I settled on one because the packaging was so clever and it smelled the best after an entire afternoon (we went back to the store the next day to buy it). I bought the one perfume, but I’m thinking once I’m brave enough to throw out my old, too strong perfumes, I may treat myself to some of the others over the next year or so.

THE WINNER

FvsS Composition No. 6 by Joya Perfumes: this perfume is oil based, not alcohol based, so it merges better with your own skin’s smells (or so I think). It’s not too heavy but it’s cloying in a good way. The bottle is handmade out of black porcelain, and the little gold wand is very sweet – it makes putting this on feel like a little ritual. Sky can also wear this as it’s not girly in the least. I’ve got it on now, and even though my nose is way stuffed up, I can still catch a whiff of warm amber.

Joya FvsS Composition No. 6

THE RUNNERS UP

8 88 by Comme des Garçons is supposed to smell like gold – it was warm and spicy and made me want to eat my wrist for most of the day. I really liked the bottle and it was hard to pick the Joya over this one. I did so because I figured it would be harder to find a small boutique perfume from NY in Seattle and I’d seen Comme des Garçons perfumes in the Barneys here.

8 88 by Comme des Garçons

Joya FvsS Composition No. 1 smells like mandarin, vanilla, and salt. It was the more syrupy version of No. 6. I may buy this one at some point just to have a matching set (there are no No.s 2-5 in this collection).

Composition No. 1

Play by Comme des Garçons was spicy and appley and bright, yet not too sweet. This was Karin’s favorite, and I liked it a lot, too. Sky thought it didn’t mix as well with my body smell, which I think is true. It reminded me a bit of other perfumes I’ve not worn much because the smell can get repetitive quickly.

Play by Comme des Garçons

If I had to pick another Runner Up it would be either the Palisander or Carnation from Comme des Garçons Red Series – also brilliant and unexpected.